Late last month, police took sitting Missouri Governor Eric Greitens into custody, charging him with invasion of privacy for compromising photos that Greitens allegedly took of his mistress back in 2015. The arrest, coming just a little over a year after Greitens was elected governor, threatens the political landscape of the state and loosens Greitens’s control and image.

According to the New York Times, Greitens was booked into a St. Louis jail and released later that same day, “…of his own recognizance.” Greitens went on to defend himself by saying, “…I made a mistake before I was governor. I did not commit a crime.”

Recently, U.S. Government officials have been no stranger to scandals and extramarital affairs. Greitens isn’t the only one to have his infidelities exposed this year, as President Donald Trump’s 2006 affair with adult actress Stormy Daniels came to light and cast a shadow over the White House.

Despite Greitens proclaiming his innocence of the crime, he does not seem to have the greatest of confidence in Missouri’s legal system. Invasion of privacy, the crime Greitens was charged with when he was arrested, is a felony offense due to the allegation that Greitens supposedly transferred the pictures he took of his mistress to a computer, turning the crime into a felony.

The case will be a defining legal case in the era of smartphones, because despite there being little evidence pointing to Greitens transferring the photo to a computer, some claim that the use of the phone itself to take the pictures constitutes grounds for a felony charge (St. Louis Today). If Greitens is found guilty of the felony, it would mean the end of his very short tenure in office.

Because of this, Greitens and his defense have filed several motions with the court: the first to have the date moved up from May 14^th, to April 9^th, just two weeks away. Originally the prosecution wanted the trial to be in November, and they reject this recent movement because it would not allow them appropriate time to prepare.

The other motion that Greitens and his attorneys have filed is to have the trial changed from a jury trial, to a bench trial. A bench trial is a trial that involves the judge passing down the final verdict, meaning that Greitens would only need to face down one person instead of a jury of fourteen. And since Greitens was arrested in St. Louis, one of only a few small areas that he didn’t win in 2016, it’s no doubt that he feels better facing a judge rather than people who didn’t vote for him.

In my opinion however, Greitens shouldn’t have anything really to be scared of if he didn’t commit the crime. But when a defendant and his counsel are repeatedly attempting to railroad the trial, it’s no doubt that they have something to hide that they don’t want found. But justice always prevails. And innocent or not, Eric Greitens will see justice. The only thing to be considered is if he will be seeing that justice from the governors office, or from a jail cell.

Editorial by Ryan Smith